Why every photographer should bring their umbrella indoors

Andrea Belluso is an experienced photographer with more than three decades in the business. Once a month, Andrea takes us behind the scenes of a recent shoot to share some of the knowledge he has gained over the years. This time he brings his Profoto Umbrella Deep indoors for a stylish portrait of a British gentleman.

A couple of months ago, I shared with you a shoot I did for Pall Mall Barbers, one of the oldest and most respected barbershops in London. Today’s shoot was done for the same client. But this time they wanted the model portrayed in more relaxed kind of environment.

After giving it some thought, I decided to keep things simple. We brought the team and our model Knut to Story Restaurant just across the street from the Profoto office in Stockholm to shoot Knut relaxing in their lounge with a cup of tea in his hand.

The B1 was chosen because I knew we would be shooting with a limited amount of time and space. Because in my experience, the B1 tends to make those kinds of shoots a lot easier.

The Umbrella Deep Silver L was brought to be our main light. I wanted a crispy light, rich in contrast, but with a focused and quite small light spread, and the Umbrella Deep Silver L is great for that. As most umbrellas, it’s also easy to carry with you and easy to use in a narrow space such as this.

The Umbrella Deep White XL was brought to light up the brick wall and a small part of the reception behind our model. This light needed to be a bit wider than out main light. I also wanted a bit less contrast and a slightly softer light. So, the Umbrella Deep White XL felt as an obvious choice.

All in all, it was a quite simple yet practical and portable set up that gave me exactly the result I was after in almost no time.

I didn’t bring any Umbrella Deep Translucent to this shoot. But if any of you are curious about the difference between the white version, the silver version and the translucent version, here is a quick comparison:

If you talk about contrast, the translucent version is more contrasted than the white but not as contrasted as the silver. If you talk about color saturation, the translucent then has the top position, providing more color saturation than both the white and the silver.

For this shoot, I chose only the white and the silver, as I really wanted the deep contrast from the silver on the subject while also needing the light to be as neutral as possible on the background.

That’s it! If you have any questions, leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to reply as soon as I can!